"When planning product and market strategy at F5, a large part of my job was to meet with and listen to our customers. I witnessed firsthand how enterprise IT organizations struggle with legacy performance management frameworks and agent-based point solutions that haven't adapted to today's dynamic environments. CIOs are incredibly frustrated that these products weigh down their IT operations and do not live up to the promised goal of ensuring application performance," says Giesa. "What companies need more than ever are vendors who bring a fresh approach to APM and who are honest about what they can deliver. I came to ExtraHop not only because they have a great vision for APM, but also because they are backed by a fantastic team and incredible technology not available anywhere else. What ExtraHop offers is an opportunity for companies to transform IT operations, stop wasting time and money, and invest more resources in efforts that will deliver business value."

Before joining ExtraHop, Giesa spent 12 years at F5 Networks where he worked closely with ExtraHop co-founders Jesse Rothstein and Raja Mukerji to build the TMOS platform and the iRules scripting language that drives F5's DevCentral community. Giesa sees strong parallels between the potential market impact of F5's iRules and ExtraHop's Application Inspection Triggers (AI Triggers) technology, a framework for real-time analysis based on scriptable event processing at the application-protocol level. Giesa plans to work with the team to build a similar community at ExtraHop that will propel the power of AI Triggers even further.

"There is nothing more powerful than community-driven innovation," notes Giesa. "AI Triggers are very similar to iRules in that they enable an unprecedented level of customization for an IT function where updates and improvements were previously only possible with vendor support. I have been amazed at the creativity that ExtraHop's customers use to solve unique performance challenges. Building a community and driving ExtraHop's market strategy to further empower our customers will be an exciting, rewarding endeavor."

"Erik has been a member of ExtraHop's advisory team since 2007, offering important insight and guidance," says ExtraHop CEO Jesse Rothstein. "My co-founder Raja Mukerji and I also worked with Erik at F5 Networks, where together we helped create the market for application delivery controllers. Erik is an excellent strategist, and we look forward to accelerating our growth in the APM market with his support."

ExtraHop Networks is the leading provider of network-based application performance management (APM) solutions. The ExtraHop Application Delivery Assurance system performs the fastest and deepest analysis in the industry, achieving real-time transaction monitoring at speeds up to a sustained 10Gbps in a single appliance and application-level visibility with no agents, configuration, or overhead. The ExtraHop system quickly auto-discovers and auto-classifies applications and devices, delivering immediate value out of the box. ExtraHop Networks provides award-winning solutions to companies across a wide range of industries, including ecommerce, communications, and financial services. The privately held company was founded in 2007 by Jesse Rothstein and Raja Mukerji, engineering veterans from F5 Networks and architects of the BIG-IP v9 product. Follow us on Twitter @ExtraHop. For more information, visit www.extrahop.com.